Dragon Ball/Z/GT Fan Fiction ❯ Slumber Party! ❯ Pain and Sorrow ( Chapter 12 )

Bulma closed the door behind her, carrying the tray of food that hadn't even been touched. She sighed and turned to face her friend, who stood nearby with a look of concern and sorrow across her pretty face.

"How much longer will she continue this way, Chi Chi?" Bulma asked, looking at the untouched food, "She hasn't eaten a thing in three days. She's wasting away…I can't bear to see her like this…"

"She's had a tough time…" Chi Chi said, shaking her head, "Losing her family that way…We just have to keep trying and be understanding…she'll come around."

"I hope so." Bulma said, moving past her to take the tray back into the kitchen, "I hope so."

Tori lay in the large bed that Chi Chi and Goku had given up for her. She felt guilty for that, somewhere deep inside her where she could still feel. She knew they had taken the sofa and loveseat in the livingroom, however uncomfortable that was, so that she could have the bed.

She stared up at the ceiling, unblinking, unthinking and numb. The numbness felt like a godsend. She did not wish to feel anything at all. She watched the sunlight play along the walls and the shadows grow deeper as each day drew to a close. The ache in her stomach begging for nourishment was a welcome alternate to the pain in her heart. As long as she was hungry, she couldn't feel anything else. Therefor, she'd refused to eat.

But, her mind would not completely close down. She kept seeing the flames and smelling the smoke and when she slept and dreamed those dreams were more often than not nightmares of her little brother and sister screaming for her to help them and her mother crying out her name while her just looked on an on with a mixture of sadness and disapointment in his eyes as he looked at her.

She tried to reach them, in her nightmares, but it was as if they were calling out for her from beyond a large canyon and no matter how she strained and screamed she could not reach them. She woke pounding the bed, hot tears streaming down her cheeks from these night images. She was releived when the nightmares began to cease at last and she just fell into dreamless blackness when she slept.

She wanted revenge. There was still a part of her that had not given in to her body's desire for emptiness. She wanted to make someone pay for killing her family. She would make someone pay. But, she thought, later…when it stopped hurting so much…She closed her eyes lest they betray her by tearing up again. She had heard Bulma leave with the tray of food she had refused to even look at and was startled out of her reverie by the sound of the bedroom door clicking open once more.

"I'm not hungry…" She said, softly, turning her back on the door, she did not even wish to see who it was, if it was not the kind, normally outgoing blue haired woman, "Please, leave me."

"I can't do that, Tori." She turned around when she heard his voice and watched as he stood over her, "You have to stop this…this nonsense."

"Nonsense!" She cried, "My family was…"

"Yes they are dead, Tori." Piccolo said, arms crossed over his chest, "But you aren't. Your alive and I think they'd want you to continue to be so. But you'll be dead soon too, if you don't stop this."

"What do you know?" She crossed her own arms over her chest in stubborn anger, What do any of them know?

"I know more than you think." He said, sitting down on the edge of her bed, "Tori, I know it's hard. I know it hurts. But, you can't give up."

"Why not?" She said, sitting slightly behind him to the side.

He looked at her. His eyes hard. Harder than she'd seen them in the short time she's known him. "Because. You said yourself. They need to pay for what they did. You are the only one who can do that, Tori."

Tori was silent, weighing his words. They were the same words she herself had been saying over and over to herself. She turned away for a moment. When she turned back her eyes held the same hardness she'd seen in his, with a flicker of something else. Determination?

"Will you help me?" She asked, knowing she'd need all the help she could get, "Please?"

Piccolo smiled, "First, you have to start eating again."

She nodded.

"Then, when your strength returns," He went on, "We'll start training."

She nodded again.